


A Winter Soldier Origin Story

by WinterCap221b



Category: Marvel
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-War, Angst, Bucky Barnes Feels, Creating the Winter Soldier, F/M, Feels, Hydra (Marvel), Origin Story, Post-War, buckynat - Freeform, winter soldier - Freeform, winterwidow - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-10 15:00:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8921596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinterCap221b/pseuds/WinterCap221b
Summary: After his fall from the train, Bucky Barnes wakes up without any memories of his past. Hydra's Doctor Zola convinces him to fight on their side and the Winter Soldier is born. However, when he is introduced to the young recruit Natalia Romanova, his world is once again turned upside down and he starts to doubt the rightfulness of his actions.





	1. Chapter 1

It was the cold that woke him. Slowly the ink black darkness that was clouding his consciousness lifted and he was able to make out his surroundings.  
He was lying on his back on something that felt like a surgical table. A cold white light hang from the ceiling above him, blinding him, making it impossible to see more than the shapes of what was around him.   
He was alone. Apart from the quiet buzz of some sort of machine he couldn’t see, everything was silent. He tried to remember how he got here, what he had done, who he was! Closing his eyes he desperately rummaged his brain for a memory but there was nothing but darkness.  
He opened his eyes again and tried to get up but when pushing himself up, he flopped left, unable to support himself. A scream escaped him as he took a look and saw nothing where his left arm used to be.  
He heard steps and managed to struggle into an upright sitting position. A small squat man in a white lab smock approached him.  
“Ah, you are awake,” he said with a heavy European (German?) accent. “Do you remember me, Sergeant Barnes?”  
Barnes? A small light ignited inside his head and began to dispel the darkness. Tags of memories started to drift to the surface. His name was James Buchanan Barnes. He was a member of the US Army and –  
“I am Doctor Armin Zola,” the small man continued. “We met before.”  
James tried to remember but again his thoughts became blurry. Why would a German doctor talk to him? Wasn’t he supposed to fight the Germans?  
“What happened?” he groaned and nodded at the bandaged stump that used to be his left arm.  
“You had a little accident,“ Zola explained.   
“What kind of accident?”  
“You fell. Into a ravine.”  
James looked at him horror-struck. “And I survived? That’s impossible!”  
“No. It is improbable but not impossible. You are a very good soldier, Sergeant Barnes. One of the best in fact, and we have decided to make you even better. We already started during your first stay with us but unfortunately you left before we were finished.”  
Cold fear grabbed James’ insides. “What have you done to me?”  
“Nothing to worry about. We simply enhanced you. That is how you could survive the fall.”  
“Enhanced? How –“  
“Oh I’m not going to bore you with the details. Let’s just say that once we have put you back together, you will be stronger, faster and more resilient than any of your former comrades. Well, except for one, maybe.”  
James looked at him quizzically but Zola didn’t elaborate. Instead he walked over to the machine that James had heard before and that he only now realised was connected to his right arm and chest through a number of thin tubes and wires.  
“Your vital signs look good,” Zola said after a few moments of careful examination. “Much better than the last couple of days.”  
Days? James tried not to show it but the revelation that he had been here for days was a shock.  
“I think we can enter the final phase.” Zola pressed a button, and a minute later, three men dressed in identical black uniforms entered the room carrying what looked like a five foot glass cylinder filled with white smoke.  
“What is that?!” James tried to get away but the lack of his arm made his movements unfocused and aimless.  
“It is a gift. You really don’t have to be afraid of us. We are the good guys. We saved you. Why would we go through all the trouble of picking you up and nursing you back to health if we had any harm in mind?”  
James had to confess that this did actually make sense; however, he was still too confused and remembered too little of his past to be fully convinced.  
“What about my friends?” he asked. “Why didn’t they come for me? How exactly did I fall into that ravine? Who was with me? How did you find me? Where are we now? Who are you and those people here? Whose side are you on? Are you German?”  
Zola laughed quietly while the uniforms placed the cylinder carefully on a table next to James. “Those are a lot of questions, soldier, but I have nothing to hide. First of all, I am Swiss, but yes, most of the others here are German. However, we are no Nazis. We belong to Hydra, we are on nobody’s side. You don’t remember anything, do you?”  
James shook his head. “The last thing I remember is leaving Brooklyn after receiving my draft notice. That must have been months ago.”  
“It was. And I am very sorry to tell you that your so-called friends betrayed you.”  
“What?”  
“You fought by their side but when the Germans attacked, you got injured and they left you behind to die. That’s when we found you and brought you to our secret facility for the first time.”  
James shook his head in disbelieve. “That cannot be true.”  
“I am sorry, my friend. I wish it wasn’t.”  
“But … why? Why would they do that?”  
“I don’t know but a few weeks after you had recovered and joined us, they came to our former hiding place and destroyed almost everything. Only a few of us survived. It was terrible. You fought bravely for us but in the end they were stronger and took you with them. Maybe they thought you would give them inside information on us. I don’t want to imagine what they did to you to get our secrets out of you. Maybe their torture is the reason for your memory loss. And when they finally realised that you wouldn’t say anything and were of no use to them, they kicked you into the ravine, I assume.” Zola looked at him sadly and James desperately tried to make sense of what he had just heard.  
His head was buzzing. It was simply too much. Could this actually be true? He used to be a member of the US Army. Weren’t they famous for always sticking together? For not leaving anyone behind? For being the good guys? But then again, he couldn’t remember any of them. He didn’t know what it had been like to be in the army. Whether his comrades had liked him or not. Maybe everything he had been told about the army and the war before leaving the US had been a lie. Zola was right. Hydra had no reason to save him unless they were trying to help him. Maybe they really were the good guys. Right now this was as good an explanation for all this as any other.  
All of a sudden he felt incredibly tired. He didn’t want this. Any of it. He longed to return to the soothing darkness of unconsciousness. But he knew that there was no going back, just like he was probably never going to retain his memory of the past months. He would have to face the future and make the best of the situation. If Hydra was willing to give him a second chance in life and to finally fight for what was right, he was willing to do whatever was in his power. However, this probably wasn’t much given that he was now handicapped.  
“Thank you for saving me but I’m afraid I won’t be of much use to you with only one arm left.”  
Zola chuckled and nodded at the three men in uniforms who had stood so silently throughout their whole conversation that James had almost forgotten they were there.  
“You might want to put these on,” Zola said and handed James a pair of safety goggles while he himself put on goggles and a pair of protective gloves.   
His heart beating violently against his chest, James watched anxiously as one of the men carefully opened the glass cylinder. A loud hiss was followed by a wave of cold air and then the man took a long silver object from the container.  
Carefully Zola took it from him and looked at it lovingly. “Isn’t it beautiful, Sergeant Barnes? The latest technology. Stronger and more adjustable than anything ever designed. It is a big honour for you.”  
James took a closer look and realised that the silver object was in fact a prosthetic arm. It consisted of numerous metal plates that interlinked perfectly creating an even surface.   
Half an hour later, the arm was attached to James’ stump, perfectly connected to the rest of his body making him feel complete again.  
“This is amazing,” he said unable to avert his gaze from the smooth movements of his new limb. He grabbed a surgical knife from the table, clenched his fist and then dropped the knife again – turned into a tight lump as if it was made of paper. “I cannot wait to use it in battle.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Soldier!”  
James loosened the grip of his metal arm around his opponent’s throat and dropped him to the floor.  
“Sorry,” he growled. “Sometimes I get carried away.”  
The Hydra agent that had been chosen to be his sparring partner today hastily staggered to his feet, rubbed his aching throat and left the gym, but not without throwing a look of utter hate and fear at James that clearly stated he was convinced the soldier was crazy.  
James couldn’t care less. He grabbed a towel to wipe the sweat off his face and chest, and walked over to the tall man who had been watching the training session with a mixture of satisfaction and concern. He was used to this kind of reaction. Nobody around here liked him. They either feared him or hated him, most of them probably both. However, after almost ten years with Hydra, James had learned to no longer bother himself with what other people thought of him. He was different, stronger, faster and more coldblooded than any other agent here. Moreover, he aged much, much slower than the others. Even though almost a decade had passed since he had been saved from the ravine, his biological age still hadn’t reached thirty. Whatever Doctor Zola and his team had done to him, it was much more than attaching the metal arm to his stump.  
In the beginning, there had been times where James had wondered whether what he was doing was right. The memories of his months in the US Army had never returned, he hardly ever left the secret Hydra facility somewhere in the Siberian wilderness unless for his missions, and all he could refer to were the information Hydra gave him. However, he had soon realised that it was much easier to simply follow orders without asking too many questions. He had learned to suppress his feelings and to stay cool no matter the situation. This attitude had soon awarded him the code name Winter Soldier.  
“You should save your power for the enemy,” the tall man now said handing James a bottle of water. General Hermann Schulz was James’ commander-in-chief and the only one who didn’t fear the Winter Soldier. “We cannot have you hurt our own agents.”  
“Agents,” James laughed darkly. “Those maggots wouldn’t survive a single day in the wild.”  
“These are some of our best agents. They have all proven themselves in battle and have therefore been chosen to be your training partners.”  
James mockingly raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. Instead he took a gulp from the bottle and then pointed with his thumb behind him. “Who’s she?”  
A spark of surprise flickered in Schulz’s eyes but he hid it quickly and beckoned the girl over to them. She was petite but athletic, not older than twenty, and her long darkish red hair was tied together in a high ponytail.   
“This is Natalia Romanova,” Schulz said and laid a heavy hand on her shoulder. “She is one of our most promising recruits and I want you to teach her.”  
“Teach her?” James repeated in disbelieve. “I don’t teach girls. I don’t teach anybody!”  
“You will teach her.”  
“Over my dead body. I’m not a kindergartener!”  
“Are you afraid I could beat you, soldier?” Natalia asked with a cheeky smile.  
James felt his jaw drop as he tried to process what he had just heard. No one ever talked to him like this. He knew the toughest and most experienced agents who didn’t even dare to look at him directly. And here was this girl who hardly reached up to his chest and who was so thin that he could easily have snapped her in half with his bare hands – and she just stood there, looked him straight into the eyes and asked the most provocative question he had ever heard.  
Oh, he would teach her alright! Teach her to respect him, teach her the pain of endless training and unquestioning obedience.  
“Tomorrow, 6 a.m. sharp, this place,” he growled and left for the showers without looking back.


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning, at 5:58 a.m., James entered the gym.  
Natalia was already there.  
“What are you doing here?” he asked dropping the two fifty pounds weights he had brought with him.  
“You told me to meet you here for training.”  
“No, I told you to meet me at 6 a.m. sharp. It is 5:58, you are not on time. That’s fifteen push-ups.”  
“Are you serious?”  
“I am, and now it’s twenty. I am your coach and you do as you are told.”  
Natalia bit her lip and dropped to the floor to perform the twenty push-ups.   
“You may think that I’m exaggerating and that I am being overly correct but out there, two minutes can decide your fate,” James explained watching her. “You will have to learn to follow your orders to the exact detail. I’m not going to invest months of training into you, just to have you killed the minute you set foot into the real world. Are we clear on that?”  
Natalia nodded, finished the set and got back to her feet.   
“Good,” said James eying her critically. “Let’s see what we can make of you then.”

 

The following weeks, James spent at least four to five hours a day teaching Natalia everything he knew about weapons, martial arts and survival techniques. And soon he had to admit to himself that he truly enjoyed the training sessions with her. Natalia was quick-witted and strong-willed, she was uninhibited by him but still respected him, and within a short amount of time, she was better than any of his more experienced training partners.  
However, this wasn’t going to last forever.  
“Today will be our last training session,” James said as he entered the gym one afternoon. “At least for a few weeks.”  
“Why?” Natalia asked in surprise.  
“I’m going on a mission. I don’t know how long it will take but it’s probably going to be about a month.”  
“Oh.”   
He tried to read her face but couldn’t. “Is there a problem, agent?”  
She looked up and shook her head. “No, sir. No problem.”  
“Fine. There’s no need to postpone training any further then.”   
“No.”  
They set off to their daily routine of strength and endurance training but there was a stifling atmosphere throughout the entire session. Natalia was quieter than usual and James himself felt a strange heaviness of heart that he couldn’t explain.   
He tried to convince himself that he was just anxious because of the upcoming mission. He had got used to life in the facility, to the daily training sessions with Natalia, and to the feeling of not being in constant peril of his life. The mission would change this and he simply had to get used to being in the wild again. That was all it was. It had nothing to do with Natalia or that he would miss her or something stupid like that.  
A sudden pain in his back jolted him out of his thoughts. Blinking he realised that he was lying flat on his back on the mat, a grinning Natalia standing above him.  
“You weren’t focussed, soldier,” she smiled. “A wise man once told me to never let my thoughts wander when I’m fighting.”  
“That man should have listened to himself,” James replied with a half-smile and grabbed her hand that she was holding out to help him up. But instead of getting up, he pulled her down to him, and before either of them knew what he was doing, he had her face in his hands kissing her desperately. To his relief she didn’t pull away but, after a moment of surprise, returned the kiss, her lips sweet and soft on his, her fingers buried in his hair, her warmth striking a spark within him that he had long forgotten.   
Sitting on his lap she had her legs wrapped around him, her body pressed against his while his metal arm held her close, his real hand vanishing beneath her shirt, exploring the soft skin of her flat stomach, her back, her breasts.  
“James,” she whispered softly, pulling away from him reluctantly. “We mustn’t do that. Not here, not … ever.”  
He knew that she was right. If anyone ever found out about this, their punishment would be gruesome. However, he felt like he was willing to risk it for her. He longed for her, wanted her, wanted to do more things than there were names for to her. Only the knowledge that she would be punished as well made him stop.  
“You have no idea what you’re doing to me,” he said hoarsly leaning his forehead against hers. “Schulz should never have brought you here. I’m not a good man. I do horrible things and I won’t stop. When I’m gone, Ruginov will take over your coaching. I will ask Schulz to leave it that way, even if I return. It is better this way. I shouldn’t have kissed you. I’m sorry.”  
“I’m not,” Natalia said kissing him again. “I know it is wrong and we mustn’t go any further, but we’ve got this moment and no one can ever take it from us.”


	4. Chapter 4

James’s mission took longer to complete than anticipated. There were days of endless observations when he was forced to do nothing but wait, knowing that it was very likely that he was being watched as well and that death could be looming behind every corner. In fact, he was almost killed twice, the second time leaving him with a deep wound in his left side that he probably only survived because he was an enhanced super soldier.   
In the end, however, all of his targets were eliminated and he was free to return to the facility.  
Almost two months had passed since he left it and as always his first way led him to Schulz to hand in his mission report.  
Seated in a big comfortable chair Schulz listened to the Winter Soldier’s report while his assistant typed down everything on a rather old type-writer. All the time James paced the room, unable to stand still, still pumped from the adrenalin of his recent kills.  
When he had finished, Schulz nodded contentedly. “Well done, soldier. I knew we could count on you. It took longer than we thought but in the end all that matters is the result. You can take the rest of the day off. And let Doctor Zola check on your wound. We don’t want you to get blood poisoning or something.”  
James nodded and opened the door to leave the office almost bumping into Natalia who was just about to knock. They both flinched, trying to hide their surprise and delight to see the other.  
“Agent.”  
“Soldier.”  
They nodded shortly and then pushed past each other; Natalia’s hand lightly brushing James’s, making it look like an accident in case any of the others should notice.  
Walking down the corridor to Doctor Zola’s office James tried to calm his mind and his rapidly beating heart. Over the past weeks he had tried to forget Natalia. He had told himself that he had been temporarily mentally incompetent and whatever had happened in the gym that day was a folly that was never going to repeat itself. He had almost hoped that she would be assigned to a mission when he returned, so he wouldn’t have to face her and the feelings he was so desperate to suppress.   
Doctor Zola told him that his wound was healing perfectly and much faster than with ordinary humans proving once more how extraordinarily well their enhancement had worked. James hardly listened to him.  
He spent the rest of the day locked up in his room, lifting weights, doing push-ups and trying his best not to think about Natalia.  
It was past midnight and he had just lain down to sleep when a soft knock on the door startled him. He turned on the small light hanging above his bed and went over to the door barefooted. He opened it a crack and saw Natalia standing there. His heart made a terrified leap and he hastily pulled her inside throwing an anxious look up and down the dark and deserted corridor.   
“What are you doing here?” he asked in a hushed voice. “You can’t be here. What if somebody saw you?”  
“Nobody saw me,” she replied just as quietly. “I know how to move unseen. I learned from the best.”  
“Flattering won’t help you,” James replied angrily. “Whatever you came here for, I am sure it can wait till tomorrow when we meet in the gym.”  
Natalia looked at him with those big green eyes of hers and took a step closer to him. “No, it can’t.”  
Her smell was dizzying, he could almost feel the heat radiating from her body, and it took all his willpower to not give in to his primal instincts.  
“You have to go,” he heard himself saying. “Go or I will report you for being out of your room after curfew. If you are here because of the kiss, then let me tell you that it didn’t mean anything. It was foolish and it never should have happened in the first place. Go.”  
“You are a terrible liar when it comes to yourself, James,” Natalia smiled softly taking another step towards him. She was now only inches away and his heart was beating so fast that he was convinced that she could hear it. Her eyes left his face and wandered across his bare chest down to the barely healed wound on his side. “Does it hurt?” she asked, carefully trailing its outline with her fingertips.  
James closed his eyes and managed to turn the moan forming inside of him into a pressed “No”.  
“I was worried about you,” Natalia said starting to plant kisses on his chest. “You said you’d be gone for a month and you didn’t return and we didn’t hear from you for so long.”  
“Natalia…” His voice was hardly more than a hoarse whisper. “Please … don’t …”  
She wrapped her arms around his waist and looked up to him. “Do you really want me to go?”  
A moment of silence, then, with a single swift movement he lifted her up and carried her over to the bed. He laid her down and settled himself over her. “You never should have come here,” he said kissing her hungrily. “You have no idea what they will do to us if they ever find out.”  
“I don’t care.”  
Natalia pulled him close, pressing against him, soft moans escaping her as his mouth started to explore every inch of her body. Her t-shirt was quickly removed exposing her bare breasts and sensitive skin. “This is so wrong,” James said continuing his journey down to her centre. “So, so wrong.” He freed her of her pants and panties, then stripped naked himself. For a moment they just looked at each other, taking in each other’s beauty. Then he came back and, kissing her deeply, settled into her.  
James couldn’t remember when he had ever felt so free, so alive. Natalia made him feel human again. She let the Winter Soldier vanish and made him realise that he was more than a soldier, more than a killing machine. She saw something in him that he himself had long forgotten. She saw James.  
Their movements became faster, their kisses more desperate. Like castaways about to drown they clung to each other, moaning the other’s name, trying to be as close as possible. A breath-taking release made their bodies shudder and breathing heavily James rolled down from her turning off the light with a quick movement of his metal hand.  
Without saying a word he pulled her close to him, wrapping both his arms around her while she settled her head on his chest. Morning would come way too soon and she would have to sneak back to her own room long before sunrise but for now he was not going to let her go.


	5. Chapter 5

Weeks went by. To James’s relief Schulz had decided that Natalia had had enough training and his coaching was no longer necessary. It wasn’t like James didn’t want to spend time with her, on the contrary. But he didn’t trust himself with being alone with her, when the mere sight of her already set his soul on fire and the gym could be entered by someone else any time.   
After their first night together, they had decided that it was too dangerous for either of them to sneak to the other’s bedroom again, so they had to find other ways to be together. They would steal a kiss when accidentally meeting in one of the more secluded areas of the facility; took advantage of late-night training sessions that would lead them deep into the surrounding woods; or arranged for a very, very early shower together, the lingering danger of getting caught making it all the more thrilling.  
However, as time went by, James began to notice a change in him. He couldn’t quite explain it but ever since he had opened up to Natalia it seemed like something that had been buried deep inside of him was slowly drifting back to the surface. He had been on three more missions lately and each time a nagging feeling that what he did was wrong and that there was more to the story than he knew kept haunting him.   
What if Schulz and the other Hydra officials hadn’t told him the truth? He had never questioned his orders but now that he thought about it, he realised that he never knew why his targets had to be eliminated. What they had done to deserve death.  
In addition, he kept having the weirdest dreams that were so vivid that he would constantly wake up in the middle of the night, covered in sweat and taking a moment or two to make sure that he had actually been dreaming.  
His dreams took him back to World War II, a time he couldn’t remember when being awake but apparently it had left a deeper impression in him than he had thought. He suspected that he was mixing experiences from his diverse missions with memories from his time in Brooklyn adding some of the nonsensical elements not uncommon in dreams.   
While he usually didn’t dream at all or immediately forgot what he had dreamed when waking up, those dreams seemed to cling to him for the rest of the day leaving the strange feeling that maybe they were more than just ordinary dreams.   
One of the more confusing ones included James lying on a surgical table being woken by his old childhood friend Steve Rogers. However, Steve, who had always been skinny and peaky, was now a tall, muscular soldier who called himself Captain America and claimed he had come to rescue James.  
Another time, James and Captain America fought an army of Hydra agents who shot blue beams from their guns that would vaporise any object or person they hit. The men were led by a fierce-looking man dressed in a black cape who at one point tore the skin from his face revealing a red skull, all the while continuing to talk like this was the most ordinary thing in the world.  
What worried James the most, however, was the fact that those dreams didn’t seem to be restricted to when he was asleep. More and more often he was hit by flashback-like pictures in broad daylight. Snippets of him marching into an army camp accompanied by a group of soldiers; he and the same group of men entering a driving train crossing a bridge surrounded by huge snowy mountains; he falling into an abyss of pitch-dark blackness with Steve trying in vain to save him.  
Those attacks always came without a warning and though they never lasted longer than a few seconds, they would throw him off balance, left him unfocussed and made him start to doubt his sanity.  
“I think I am loosing my mind,” he finally told Natalia when they were alone once again. They had been sent off to check the barbed wire fence surrounding the perimeter and James took the chance to pour out his heart to Natalia. He told her everything about his dreams and the fits he had had lately. When he had finished, Natalia took his hands and looked at him anxiously.  
“Do you think those dreams might be actual memories preserved in your subconscious?”  
James shrugged and bit his lip. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense, does it? Steve being that huge specimen, and that guy with the red skull…. And in those … those dreams Steve was trying to save me when I fell from the train when really I was pushed down.”  
“But what if he – or whoever that guy was – really tried to save you?” Natalia asked. “You don’t remember what happened before you came here. All you’ve got is what Doctor Zola and the others told you. And honestly….” She lowered her voice to a whisper that was almost inaudible even though there was no one around for almost a mile. “I wouldn’t trust any of them.”  
James looked at her in surprise, shocked by the fact that she had put his worst fears into words.   
“So you think that none of it is true? That they lied to me to win me over?”  
“You really don’t know anything about Hydra, do you?” Natalia asked looking at him almost pityingly. “We aren’t the good guys, James. We are trained assassins, made to help them take over the world. Hydra is one of the most dangerous organisations in the world and we are their weapons. Whatever they told you about freedom and the elimination of the evil, it’s all a lie.”  
James swallowed hard, feeling embarrassed that he had been so ignorant and naive for all those years. “How do you know about all this?” he asked. ”You’ve only been here for six months. They wouldn’t tell you about it.”  
Natalia shook her head sadly. “No, they wouldn’t. But when I was still in the orphanage, I overheard some of the instructors talk about it. Of course they didn’t know I was there. I was supposed to be in my dorm with the other orphans, but I had snug out to get some food from the kitchen. That’s when I heard voices coming from one of the offices and I crept to the door to listen. They said that this year’s class was very promising and that we – me and the other girls – would become wonderful agents, ready to kill without asking questions, bringing them one step closer to world dominion.“  
“And you still stayed there?”  
“What choice did I have? I was only ten years old and I had nowhere to go. My parents were dead and the school was the closest thing to a family I had. They treated us well as long as we stuck to the rules, and I was too young to fully understand what I had heard.”  
“But you understand it now and you still chose to come here.”  
“I didn’t choose it, James. Once you are a part of Hydra, there’s no going back. They would have you killed long before you even left their premises.” A single tear rolled down her cheek and James wiped it away with his thumb. “Don’t think that I never thought about leaving. I thought about it more often than I can count but it’s impossible. We are stuck here until we die – and this is probably going to be very soon. I’m assigned for my first mission the day after tomorrow and I don’t know whether I’ll be coming back.”  
James looked at her for a moment, then he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her softly. “No, you won’t come back. Because you’re not going on that mission. We’re leaving here tomorrow.”  
“Don’t be ridiculous. I told you it’s impossible.”  
“Maybe. But I am willing to take the risk. I’d rather die than be under their control any longer.”


	6. Chapter 6

That very night, James took all the precautions for their flight the next day. He packed a bag full of clothes and food as well as a number of knives, guns and ammunition. He always kept those weapons in his locker, and as he habitually ate alone in his room, nobody thought much about it when he carried some provisions from the mess hall. Knowing that hiding in plain sight was always the best disguise, he had told Natalia to do the same and to meet him at 5 a.m. the next morning in the garage.  
At the appointed time they both entered the huge underground hall that contained the facility’s car pool. They knew that the place was monitored by security cameras but as long as they acted like they had a right to be there, it was unlikely that anyone would pay special attention to them.  
James’s heart was beating violently against his chest as he opened the door to one of the jeeps and threw his bag in the back seat. Natalia followed suit, like him keeping an unmoved face, only her eyes showing her fear.  
They didn’t talk until they had left the garage and were headed for one of the exits on the other side of the premises. It was still dark and there was no one to be seen.   
“You can still get out,” James said, his eyes fixed on the road. “It’s very likely we will be dead within the next five minutes, and I’d hate to have dragged you into this.”  
“You didn’t drag me into this,” Natalia replied, not looking at him either. “I would have done it long ago if I had had the courage. I don’t want to be a tool anymore.”  
James nodded as they approached the guardhouse at the northern fence. “Leave the talking to me,” he said relinquishing his grip of the steering wheel that he had grabbed so tightly that he nearly bent it with his metal hand. “And whatever happens … I love you.” It was the least romantic way and definitely not the right moment to say it but he wanted her to know and the soft touch of her hand on his leg told him that she felt the same. She quickly removed it though when they came to a halt in front of the gate that stood between them and the outside world.  
A guard stepped out of the small house next to the gate and motioned them to lower the driver’s window.   
“What are you doing out here?” he asked eyeing them suspiciously. “Only authorized agents are allowed to pass this gate.”  
“I’ve got a mission,” James said firmly, keeping an eye on the man’s rifle and his own hand hovering over his gun that lay just out of the man’s view between James and Natalia. “And it is urgent, so you better open the gate.”  
“You’re not on my list,” the guard said not sounding too confident, his fear of the Winter Soldier clearly having an impact.   
James ground his teeth like he was losing patience. “I got the order only an hour ago. By General Schulz himself. Do you want to call him and tell him why you’re keeping his best soldier from completing an urgent mission?”  
James could see doubt shining in the man’s eyes but his sense of duty was too strong, so he reached for his radio to call for backup or have James’s story verified by Schulz.  
Without a warning James’s metal arm shot out of the window grabbed the man’s throat and squeezed it shut until he felt the man’s body go limb. He dropped the body and jumped out of the car to open the gate. One minute later they sped out into the Siberian wilderness.  
James cursed and floored the gas pedal to get them away as quickly as possible. The guards had to radio in every half hour giving a short report on the situation at their station. It was now ten past five, so Natalia and James had twenty minutes tops until someone realised that something was wrong at Gate N.  
While they sped away, they both kept checking the rear-view mirror for any pursuers but there was no one to be seen. Nevertheless, James left the main road as soon as possible following narrow paths that led them ever deeper into the woods.  
They had been driving for almost two hours when Natalia finally broke the silence. “Do you have any idea where we are going?”  
James had to admit that he did not. “Away. We have to leave the country, take on new identities, start a new life somewhere they cannot find us.”  
“As long as they aren’t following us already.”  
“They probably are. We need to get rid of the car and cover our tracks as good as possible. We won’t let them get us. Never again.”  
Luck seemed to be on their side. They drove all day without seeing any Hydra agents, and when the sun set, they reached a small village. Under the screen of night, James hot-wired a car that stood in an old barn and they continued their way further south until James couldn’t stay awake any longer. He had been up for almost twenty-four hours now and his eyes were burning and his body aching. Natalia had already fallen asleep curled up on the passenger seat. When James stopped the car in a clearing deep inside the woods, she awoke with a start.  
“Where … where are we?” she asked looking frantically around. “Is everything okay? Did they find us?”  
“Calm down. Everything’s fine. I found us a place to spend the night. Just stay here until I put up the tent.”  
“Oh, okay.”  
James quickly put up the tent that was part of the survival kit found in every Hydra jeep and then carried Natalia into it lying down next to her. The night was cold and they only had one blanket but huddled together and having the promise of freedom before them, they slept better than they had done in a long time. This night, James didn’t have any flashback dreams.  
In the morning, Natalia prepared a simple breakfast while James went to a small river some half mile away to get them fresh water. He had just filled their bottles when he suddenly heard a sound that didn’t belong to the woods. He froze and listened intently. There it was again. A metallic click, scarcely audible, but his enhanced sense of hearing identified it immediately: it was the sound of a gun being cocked – and the next second a bullet zipped past him, missing him by a mere inch, a second one hitting his metal arm and falling to the ground.  
They had found them!  
Without missing a beat, James whirled around and broke off in full speed chasing back to the clearing. Behind him a group of Hydra agents burst out from behind the trees, firing at him but missing.  
James zig-zagged through the forest, blood pumping in his ears, fear grabbing his insides. Natalia. What if they had already got her? Twenty yards from the clearing, he saw her. She was just folding the blanket to put it back into their bag.  
“Natalia! RUN!” he yelled running even faster.  
She looked up and took in the situation within a second. In a heartbeat she had spun around and set off to the other side of the woods. James crossed the clearing, managed to grab one of the guns lying at the tent’s entrance without slowing down and chased after her. Within a minute he had caught up with her, grabbed her hand and pulled her along with him.   
He knew that it was useless. There was no way they could outrun them and they had only a gun and a knife to defend themselves. They would be dead within a few minutes but he was prepared to fight until his last breath.  
All of a sudden the forest ended, leaving them on a wide grassy plain. They desperately looked around for a place to hide but in vain.   
Engine noise made them freeze as they saw a group of black motorbikes shooting towards them.  
“That’s it. We’re going to die,“ Natalia said surprisingly calm. „But if we do, we’ll take as many of them with us as possible.“ She took the knife from him and kissed him passionately. “I love you, James. Thank you for everything.“  
Before he could say anything, she turned around and sprinted back to where they had come from, straight into their pursuers‘ arms. They had stopped shooting and the last thing James saw before something hit his head from behind was Natalia kicking and slashing at the agents injuring at least half a dozen of them.  
Then everything around him went dark.


	7. Chapter 7

He woke up to the sound of voices and machines surrounding him. His head felt like it was about to explode any minute and he felt sick. He was seated in a large metal chair, his arms and legs chained to it, so he could hardly move.   
“You made a big mistake, soldier,“ he heard a voice saying in his ear and as he lifted his gaze, he saw Doctor Zola standing next to him. “Did you really think you could escape us? I really thought you were cleverer.“  
“Natalia,“ James managed to blurt out. “What have you done to her?“  
“Agent Romanowa is no longer part of your world. You will quickly forget about her.“  
“Never!“  
Zola laughed a joyless laugh. “Never is a long time, soldier. We thought you would follow us and your orders but you tried to betray us and we cannot tolerate that. Is that your way of thanking us for saving you and giving you a chance in life?“  
“Why didn’t you just kill me?“  
“You were our best soldier and we put too much work into you to just kill you,“ Zola explained. “But sometimes something has to be broken before it can be fixed.“   
He pointed at a machine that was connected to James’s bare chest. “You will be our most loyal soldier once we are done.“  
James frantically tried to free himself but the chains kept him in place. With a soft hum two pads moved to James’s temples and a moment later an excruciating pain shot through his head as high voltage electricity entered him.  
He heard a scream and realised that it was him. Darkness clouded his conscience as wave after wave of electricity shot through him.  
Hours turned into days, days into weeks.  
They emptied him, extracted his memories, his feelings, his self, and refilled him with their ideas and ideologies. His will was broken and he wouldn‘t even move without anyone telling him to. He followed his orders without questioning them. He killed without mercy and didn’t remember anything of his past.  
The Winter Soldier had been turned into the perfect weapon.


End file.
